Thursday, October 27, 2011

People have traveled from all over Colorado to come hear Jerry Barlow play at Read, Write & Brew. He has a loyal following, and if you live in the neighborhood, you need to take advantage of the convenience and come on down and hear him play this Saturday. You won't be disappointed.

Friday, September 9, 2011

We're currently in the 'kitchen' experimenting with new coffee concoctions to serve up with the cooler change in the weather. Wait till you taste what we have come up with so far. Feel nice and warm and cozy in the belly...

Attention all book lovers and aspiring writers! Come and interact with talented published local area writers. Talk to them about their current books and latest literary works. All books will be available for purchase direct from the author. Who will be there?

Jo Ann Colton is a published writer, seminar facilitator, and marketer. She specializes in business writing, newspaper and magazines articles. Website

Kim Burnett has four books facing publication, including this guide for men entitled, The Knuckle-draggers Guide to Romance (Yes Even a Caveman Can Do It). Website

Dave Knox has been writing creatively since the 1960s. Revolution: A Revisionist’s Fiction, is a story that embraces a different U.S. historical outcome for the period 1968-1974. Website

Kellee Henderson of Edit Write, Ink is a savvy editor with clients nationwide. She has nineteen (19) years of professional experience providing quality editing services. Kellee is a published author of non-fiction stories and articles.

This event is organized and hosted by theFOOTHILLS & VICINITY WRITERS GROUP.For more information about the multi-author event, or the group’s monthly meetings contact:JM Colton(303) 670-1028.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Barlow is a consummate artist who is not only skilled as a musician but is also an amazing performer resplendent with wit, humor and the ability to mesmerize an audience, concert organizers promise. “He is also a storyteller whose repertoire is a synthesis of his own Celtic inspired compositions and the traditional music of the British Isles. His music has the power to transport the audience across time and space on an imaginary journey to a rustic Irish fishing village, the mist Scottish Highlands or an ancient English forest. Jerry tells the tales of the Celtic tunes he plays and the history and legends behind the music.”

Have a great Labor Day weekend off people. Enjoy what little is left of summer in Denver, and then on Tuesday be sure to come back into 'Read, Write & Brew' for your mocha-choca-cinna-latte, or whatever it is that tickles yer fancy.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Americans are great joiners.Millions of us join organizations devoted to birds, animals, natural history, and the outdoors.But joining is not the same as connecting.We have been slow to realize that Nature is in trouble.The climate is warming.Resources are disappearing faster than we can replace them.Species extinctions are accelerating.

To save birds and to preserve the planet we must first heal ourselves, because as intolerance and selfishness demonstrate every day, humanity is in trouble with itself.We can begin to save ourselves by realizing that our fate is linked to that of the natural world.We can begin to heal our environment by relearning cooperation, mutual respect, and generosity of spirit—virtues that will reinforce our intimate and infinite ties to Mother Nature.

Throughout The Ties That Bind: Birds, Nature and Us Mike Foster emphasizes the practical value of these virtues while elaborating the personal philosophy he has developed during a lifetime of outdoor experiences.His sympathetic connections to Nature provide vivid images of the natural world, especially birds.His message is informative and uplifting.

The questions the author raises in these essays probe subjects most of us prefer to ignore: Why are so many Americans still denying their role in global warming?How is the “energy crisis” mostly a matter of attitudes?What would bacteria like to tell us?Why is water shortage a moral issue?

In the voluminous literature on the environment, this book is unique in suggesting the transformative role birds can play in changing our attitudes to Nature.Based on solid biological research, expressed in a fluent and often lyrical style with a confident voice, Foster’s essays will convince you that birds and Nature are worth saving.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Two new local musical artists have joined the live music line up at Read, Write & Brew.

You may have seen them perform at local events around town - or you may not have had the opportunity to listen to their stuff yet. Either way, they're passionate about music, they're talented, and they're free to listen to! So make sure you come on down to your local coffeehouse with a bunch of friends and enjoy the free entertainment.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Attention all book lovers and aspiring writers! Come and interact with talented published local area writers. Talk to them about their current books and latest literary works. All books will be available for purchase direct from the author. Who will be there?

Jo Ann Colton is a published writer, seminar facilitator, and marketer. She specializes in business writing, newspaper and magazines articles. Website

Bert was deaf and blind since the age of forty five. This heartwarming narrative is told by Diane Lane Chambers, eighty six year-old Bert's sign language teacher. Website

Kim Burnett has four books facing publication, including this guide for men entitled, The Knuckle-draggers Guide to Romance (Yes Even a Caveman Can Do It). Website

Dave Knox has been writing creatively since the 1960s. Revolution: A Revisionist’s Fiction, is a story that embraces a different U.S. historical outcome for the period 1968-1974. Website

This event is organized and hosted by theFOOTHILLS & VICINITY WRITERS GROUP.For more information about the multi-author event, or the group’s monthly meetings contact:JM Colton(303) 670-1028.

Monday, April 18, 2011

We love to write our 'Java Junkies' post, because it's a way for us to get to know all our regulars better - and it's a way for all our regulars to also get to know more about those familiar faces they see when they're hanging out at the store. We like to think we're doing our part in encouraging 'local community bonding' and stuff.

Julie: How long have you guys been coming to Read, Write & Brew?

Cory: Since last fall. We moved here to Colorado from San Diego.

Julie: Did you guys grow up in San Diego?

Kim: I did. Cory grew up in Michigan – Upper Peninsula.

Julie: So what took you out to San Diego Cory?

Cory: Well, I originally moved out to Colorado, to Fort Collins, like, probably eleven years ago. And, uh, just met some friends and he used to be in the Marines, and he always wanted to get back to the surfing, and I loved motor cross, so the three of us moved out to San Diego so he could surf and I could do the motor cross.

Julie: Are you still doing any motor-crossing?

Cory: No, haven’t done it in a few years, but I still love the sport.

Julie: And what brought you out here?

Cory: School of Mines. I’m going to school there.

Julie: What are you studying?

Cory: Mineral and Energy Economics.

Julie: And how’s it going so far?

Cory: So far so good. It’s tough, but it’s going well.

Julie: How much longer have you got to go?

Cory: Ummm, a few years. It’s a PHD program, so probably another 4 years or so.

Julie: And then when you’re done do you plan on staying in Colorado, or do you plan on moving on?

Cory: The degree will take me wherever the market leads me, so…

Julie: Well good luck with that.

Cory: Thanks.

Julie: And what do you do Kim?

Kim: I’m an executive assistant and I work down in Denver.

Julie: So what’s your guys’ passion? What things do you love to do?

Kim: [laughs] Right now we just work on our house.

Julie: Are you renovating it?

Kim: Um, no. We just bought a place and it hadn’t been painted, so we’re going through the whole, having to paint every square inch of it. That’s pretty much what we do now.

Cory: Yeah, otherwise it’s just full time school, and walkin’ the dogs.

Julie: How many dogs do you have?

Cory: We have two. A little Lab, and then an Australian Cattle Dog.

Kim: Yes, they keep us busy. That was our routine, and so that was the hardest part about moving here is that, well coming from San Diego there’s so many coffee shops and different little cute eclectic places that we would bounce around and we had our little routine down and then when we moved it was hard to find another set of shops to go to. So, when Cory stumbled on your place…

Julie: Awesome! Do you find it harder to walk your dogs year round here? Do you let the snow stop you at all in the winter?

Cory: No. You really can’t. I mean, it limits where you can go, but for the most part it hasn’t been too bad. You know, and we live just off Green Mountain so, when it’s nice, there’s lots of places to take them.

Julie: I’ve noticed, every time you come in, Jefferson see’s you, gets a cup ready and just says to you ‘Black and Tan’?

Kim: Yep, and then I get the iced tea.

Julie: So what’s something most people don’t know about you guys, or would never know about you unless they asked this question?

Cory: Well, it’s not too wild or wacky, but we had the chance to travel to East Africa, Tanzania. We spent a couple of weeks there. And that was really nice.

Julie: Tanzania, wow! What was that like? I don’t know anything about that country.

Kim: It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I ended up winning a sales contest at work, and so I got $10,000 to go on a vacation. So where would you pick if you had $10,000? So I decided we could either do something really fancy or we could do something that we would never do if it was our own money. So we went on a safari with a British company, and we traveled all over Tanzania and actually spent like three or four days, they let us camp in the bush with those big tents like you see in the movies… and um, yeah, they took really good care of us so, it was just us and our guide and, the guide specialized in birds, and Cory likes birds, and he also specialized in photography. So he’d always rotate the Jeep to the right light so we could get the best pictures of the animals.

Julie: So you got to see wild animals up close, like lions and zebras and…

Cory: Yeah, that was pretty much the norm. Every day you’d see elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras…

Julie: Did it freak you out to be so close to those huge wild animals like that?

Kim: It freaks you out! I mean, they were close. Like, the elephant would be just on the other side of the glass, you know, right here [we were sitting on the couches, and Kim was pointing to the window facing our patio].

Julie: That close!

Kim: Really close. We had one block the road, where you know, he moves to the side flapping his ears, showing his dominance. And then, there’s different techniques they use to try and move them, but…

Cory: You don’t know if they are going to charge or not…

Kim: Yeah they’d say ‘If they charge and we flip over, make sure you stay underneath the Jeep’, so [laughing] it’s real life stuff. So, I was probably more freaked out than Cory. Cory was loving it, but… at one point they found lionesses in the trees, and we weren’t supposed to go off the trail, but our guide was like, ‘we’ve gotta do this’, so he drove us into the trees and literally, if you stood up and looked out the skylight, the paw was just six inches above where we were and you could hear them breathing. They were up in the trees trying to catch some breeze… so, you’re like ‘theycould just fall over into our truck [laughs] but they never did and I guess people, I mean, that’s why they’re paying the money, they WANT that experience. But, it was a little like, hectic for me.

Julie: How long ago did you do this?

Cory: It was... six years ago?

Kim: Yeah.

Julie: The way you’re talking about it, it sounds like it was just last summer or something. It sounds like it’s still so vivid to you…

Cory: Yeah, it’s definitely an experience that you want to try again… so we’ll probably go back again.

Kim: Yeah, but there is no real, like, as much as you’re paying, there’s not a lot of creature comforts. Because there’s no electricity down there, so everything’s generator.

Julie: But don’t you kinda want it that way though? I mean, you’re going out into the African jungle, wouldn’t you want the full wild, raw experience…

Kim: But it’s hot [‘hot’ said with great emphasis, then laughs. Cory even agrees]. After being in 100 degree weather all day, you’re like, I’d like some cool air or… and the showers are all heated by wood, so your temperature it’s pumped from wherever you’re at – so it’s just whatever it is.

Julie: Oh, so you can’t control the temperature to make it hotter or colder.

Kim: Yeah, and so you still have like lots of bugs, and you know, there’s still that side of it. It’s pretty gritty I guess, but, it was cool. We definitely say, if you get the opportunity, it’s well worth it.

Cory: And it’s to the point now where they have big lodges there too. Like, in the middle of nowhere you’ll drive up and they’ll just have this huge lodge, so you can stay in nice comfortable places, you know, or you could stay in the tents if you want. So it’s, it’s nice.

Wow – not everyone you meet can talk about an African jungle adventure like that. Thanks so much for sharing this experience with us, and thanks for being valued regulars at Read, Write & Brew. Enjoy spending your $10 gift certificate at the store. It’s our way of saying thanks for letting us pry into your lives and publish it onto our blog.

Monday, April 11, 2011

The New Normal predicts that in the emerging era, production and consumption will no longer be the defining characteristics of civilization – cultural richness, efficiency, cooperation, expression, ecological design, and biological restoration will be.

From the Chapter, “Living Wealth: Restoring the Economies of Nature:”

Old Perspective: Nature is, at worst, an evil enemy and at best a warehouse of resources we can convert to cash. Produced capital is more valuable than natural capital because we made it. By the force of technology, will, and human ingenuity, we can displace people, plants, and animals that were original inhabitants and replace them with malls, subdivisions, and electronic gadgets that are far more profitable. Pay no attention to the weeds, pests, toxic chemicals, slash piles, and tailings ponds that are side effects of industry, because that’s what money looks like.

New Perspective: Nature is far from being a problem; rather, it’s a symphony of tried and true solutions – a source of materials if harvested sustainably; and a “sink” that recycles biodegradable wastes. Letting nature go broke is like swinging wrecking balls against our own houses and places of worship. In many cases, the services nature provides, just in the course of being a living system, have far greater value than the minerals, processed food, and other products that come from Earth’s ecosystems. In the emerging era, restoration of natural systems and adoption of sustainable practices will be our civilization’s highest priority.

The key questions are:

Will biological and physical scarcity stimulate beneficial changes in human behavior? Will civilization change its priorities because of new biological realities?

Can we change the direction of our economy, from “Destroy nature, make money” to “Preserve and restore nature, save money”?

Too often, we respond to urgent reports about the decline of nature with a shrug of our shoulders. Since many impacts are embedded within our way of life – the way we manufacture, farm, generate energy, collect used material, etc. – we often don’t feel there’s much we can do as individuals. This collective shoulder-shrugging – a whole civilization deferring responsibility – is potentially fatal; many empires and civilizations before ours collapsed because of a lack of respect for nature. In our times, the throwaway lifestyle seems easy, but inevitably results in higher taxes, expensive health effects, and degraded landscapes that need to be repaired. These added expenses make our civilization unaffordable.

However, by “saving nature” we make life less expensive, creating jobs, recreation, health, and security; a stable climate, and a way of life that requires less maintenance. Yet, because our role as consumers has dominated our lives, we sometimes forget the many other ways we can preserve and restore nature: as teachers, students, farmers, designers, parents, voters, citizen activists, business owners, shareholders, churchgoers, vacationers, petition signers, meal planners, Internet users, and influential friends. In each of these roles, we can weave additional strands into the web of life.

Evidence of the changing paradigm is all around us, as the word “green” begins to redefine our culture.

The excerpt above was taken from http://www.davewann.com/publications/the-new-normal/Click on this link to read more from 'The New Normal'.David Wann is an author, filmmaker, and speaker on the topic of sustainable lifestyles and designs. Simple Prosperity is a sequel to the best-selling book he coauthored, Affluenza, which is now in 9 languages. A third book in the “trilogy” about creating a more sensible way of life is The New Normal, which has just been published by St. Martin’s press. It presents 33 high-leverage actions that can shift our culture in a more sustainable direction.

He has also produced 20 videos and TV programs, including the award-winning TV documentary “Designing a Great Neighborhood,” about the Holiday neighborhood in Boulder. David is president of the Sustainable Futures Society and a Fellow of the National Simplicity Forum. He worked more than a decade as a policy analyst for U.S. EPA and co-designed the cohousing neighborhood where he lives, in Golden.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Just in case you missed this interesting article on 3rd Street Chai, we thought we'd add it to our Blog. It's good to know about the stuff you eat and drink, after all; your ARE what you eat... and drink, I suppose.

BOULDER - If you ever visit Third Street Chai, do not be surprised if the owners take you directly to the back of the factory to show you the place they put their trash.

While the company is extremely proud of their products, it is what happens to the steaming pile of ingredients after it is used to make the chai, black and green tea, that sets them apart from their competitors.

Once the brewing process is over, the leftovers are heaped into a special bin and eventually sent to Boulder County farmers and used as compost. Through this process, the company says it was able to keep 47 tons of waste from being sent to landfills.

The company's commitment to sustainability does not end there. Third Street Chai ingredients are organic and fair trade certified, the company's electricity is completely offset by wind-power and all of its bottles are recyclable.

The company was started back in 1995 by two friends, who saw an opportunity to sell chai tea to downtown Boulder coffee shops. At first, the founders were mixing the chai by hand and delivering it in their personal cars. By 1997, they had moved to a commercial kitchen and were delivering to dozens of local coffee shops.

In 2000, Whole Foods asked the company to expand their offerings to include retail items-so the company converted an old auto repair garage into a brewery. The company grew out of that facility, moving to its current 10,000 square foot facility northeast of Boulder, in 2006.

Third Street Chai has also expanded its offerings and now sells concentrated ice tea and lemonade in addition to its wide variety of chai teas. You can find all of their products in Whole Foods and King Soopers stores, as well as other natural grocers.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Leila Levinson will be at Read, Write & Brew March 28th at 7pm for a meet and greet, and will also perform a reading from her book. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet Leila and purchase a signed copy of her book ‘Gated Grief’.

Standing in her university classroom, Leila Levinson called on a student with a raised hand.

“Can veterans' war trauma be passed onto their families?”

That question would inspire five years of research, countless interviews with war vets and their families, and eventually, Levinson's current book: Gated Grief: The Daughter of a GI Concentration Camp Liberator Discovers a Legacy of Trauma (Cable Publishing, January 31, 2011).

The daughter of a Nazi concentration camp liberator and army surgeon, Levinson was a close observer of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), though science hadn't yet defined it when her father came home, and he never even hinted at his awful experiences. Photographs Levinson found after his death revealed her father’s trauma.

It wasn't until she heard her student's question that she wondered: How did her father's buried trauma affect her family members? After all, her mother – absent since Levinson was 5 – suffered mental illness. And Levinson herself struggled with adult depression. So in 2005, she applied for a grant from the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust, and when she received it, set out for answers.

Today, Levinson is an expert on trans-generational trauma. Her five-year research project spanned the National Archives in Washington, DC, studying photos and taped interviews with veterans, to Holocaust museums the world over, to the homes of seventy veterans themselves, where she received first-hand accounts from Nazi camp liberators and their families.

The result is Gated Grief, a multigenerational perspective of PTSD, revealing how unhealed trauma reverberates through a family. But readers also gain a more pressing lesson: That facing trauma enables enormous healing.

From 2002 – 2008, Levinson taught a Holocaust literature course at St. Edward's University inAustin, Tex. A freelance commentator on cultural issues, she has appeared on CNN, is a regularcontributing blogger for Huffington Post, and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Austin American Statesman, The Texas Observer, and WWII Quarterly. She also has pieces forthcoming in Cross Currents and War, Literature, and Art. In 2006, the Writers League of Texas named her manuscript of Gated Grief the “Best Narrative Nonfiction Manuscript.”

Levinson is also the founder of www.veteranschildren.com, a website where veterans and theirchildren are invited to share their stories. She lives with her husband and two sons in Austin, Tex.

About Us...

Opened October 16th 2009. Closed June 29th 2012. Re-opening late July under new owners, as 'Bean Fosters'. Thank you to all our customers who helped make Read, Write & Brew a great place to hang... (you know who you are!).